Promise Made (22 page)

‘Here comes the doctor,' Daniel said, giving her a warning look. ‘Be calm and sensible, Fran. There's no sense in making a scene.'

Frances was beyond listening to him. She broke from his grasp and ran up to the doctor, grabbing at his arm. ‘Where is my baby? I want to see him! Is he all right?'

‘Charlie is very far from all right,' the doctor told her sternly. His large hand pried hers from the sleeve of his coat. ‘Try to be calm, Mrs Danby. We are doing all we can for your son, but I am afraid he is very sick. I am not sure that he will pull through this, though we shall do all we can for him. It would have been better if we could have seen him much earlier.'

‘But he wasn't ill until this morning,' Frances said. ‘I rang the doctor but he didn't come . . . so my brother brought us here.'

‘I understand from your brother that he has had a little chill and a bit of a fever for a few days?'

‘Well, yes, he was a bit grizzly, but not really ill,' Frances said. ‘Even this morning I thought it was just a bilious attack.'

‘It is always best to take children to the doctor straightaway,' he said. ‘Had you done so we should have stood a better chance of fighting this illness.'

‘What is it?' Frances asked, thoroughly frightened. ‘I've never seen anything like the fit he had on the way here.'

‘We have to do certain tests . . .' The doctor was hesitant. ‘It may be a condition called meningitis but we can't be sure yet.'

‘I've never heard of that,' Frances said. ‘He had the German measles the other year but he wasn't as bad as this . . . I don't understand it.'

‘If it is meningitis I am afraid it is rather more serious. We shall just have to pray that it is merely a fever, Mrs Danby.' His stern features relaxed into a slightly less disapproving look. ‘You may see him for a few minutes, but then I think it best if your brother takes you home. We don't like parents on the ward, because it gets in the way of our work. You may visit him tomorrow afternoon between two in the afternoon and three – or in the evening between seven and eight.'

‘Just one hour?' Frances was disbelieving. ‘But he will want his Mummy. He will be so upset when I'm not there to cuddle him.'

‘At the moment he is in a coma,' the doctor told her. ‘Charlie will not know if you are there or not, Mrs Danby. If he comes out of it you may be able to spend a little more time with him.'

Frances stared as he walked back towards the ward he had come from, following at a little distance, her heart racing. As she went into the ward and saw her son lying in a cot with high sides, a needle and saline drip attached to his arm, she felt as if she would weep. Her throat was tight with pain as she bent over him, touching his pale face. He stirred slightly and his eyelids fluttered but did not open. She stroked his face and then his arm, taking his tiny hand in hers and soothing it with her fingers. He looked so small and so vulnerable, and it was breaking her heart to see him like this . . . her baby.

‘Charlie . . .' she whispered, tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘I love you so much, so very much. Don't die, my darling. Please don't die. I can't bear to lose you too . . .' She had lost her husband, surely she wasn't going to lose her child like this?

‘He will be well cared for,' a nurse said coming up to her and touching her arm. ‘Sister Norton says that you have to leave now. I shall give you a telephone number to ring – and I shall need all your details. Are you on the telephone at home?'

‘Yes. I'll write it all down for you.' Frances took a pad she was offered from the nurse and wrote her name, address and telephone number. ‘I've written his name down too. We call him Charlie.'

‘Good, that is what we needed. Give us a call later and we'll tell you how Charlie is.' The nurse gave Frances a sympathetic look. ‘I know it must feel awful to leave him here, but you can't do anything to help, you know.'

‘I suppose not.' Frances looked at her, relieved to see a friendly face at last. ‘I love him so much and he is all I have.'

‘Your husband?'

‘He . . . was killed in a car accident a few months ago . . .'

‘Oh, you poor thing,' the nurse said. ‘My name is Shirley and I lost my fiancé in the war so I know how you feel. Look – can I get you a cup of tea?'

‘No, thank you.' Frances took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. ‘I'd better go or your superior will be cross. If you could give me that number to ring?' She took the small piece of paper Nurse Shirley offered and slipped it into her coat pocket. ‘Thank you. Goodbye.'

Frances went out into the corridor. Daniel was speaking to a doctor but he saw her and came towards her almost at once.

‘All right?' he asked.

‘No, not really,' Frances said. ‘But they won't let me stay so there's nothing we can do here. I can telephone and come to visit tomorrow afternoon or in the evening.'

‘I can't come in the afternoon,' Daniel said. ‘But I could bring you over in the evening.'

‘I'll get a bus and come over in the morning,' Frances said. ‘I shall stop all day so that I see him twice. I might try to find a room in Cambridge if he is going to be here more than one day.'

‘Yes, that's a good idea,' Daniel said. ‘I'll take you home now, Fran – unless you would like to come and stay with us?'

‘No, I'd better stay at home tonight. I gave the nurse my own number and she says they will ring me if anything . . .' She choked back a sob. ‘It isn't going to happen. He will be all right. He has to be . . .'

Frances was silent for most of the journey home. She didn't feel like talking, because she was too upset and scared. Leaving Charlie lying in that hospital bed had been like tearing the heart from her breast, and she wanted to ask Daniel to turn round and take her straight back. How could they send her away when her little boy was so ill? They were cruel and uncaring, and she should never have left him in that awful place.

‘There was nothing more you could do, Fran,' Daniel said, glancing at her white face. ‘If we hadn't taken him in he would almost certainly have died.'

‘I know,' she whispered, her throat aching. ‘But I hated leaving him. He looked so defenceless and small . . .'

‘I know – but they will look after him. You'll be bringing him home in a few days.'

‘I hope so . . .' Frances was praying that her brother was right, but she had a horrible cold feeling spreading over her, and a fear that she would never see her son alive again.

Daniel asked if she would like him to come in when they drew up outside her house. ‘I can stop for a while, if you like?' he offered. ‘Or you can change your mind and come to us?'

‘Thanks for all you've done,' she said and gave him a wan smile. ‘But I would rather stay here. I've a few jobs to do and I can telephone the hospital soon.'

‘All right – if you're sure?'

Frances nodded. She got out of the car and went up to the house, letting herself in at the front door. Charlie's dog was howling at the back door and she opened it to let him in, bending down to stroke him.

‘I had better feed you,' she said, because she realized that she had forgotten all about the poor creature that morning.

For a few minutes she busied herself by giving the dog some food and water, and then let it out into the garden again. The house felt empty without her son and she almost wished that she had gone to stay with her brother. Daniel had been considerate, but even he had asked her why she had left it so long before getting her son to the doctor. It seemed that everyone thought she had neglected Charlie – and now she was beginning to blame herself.

She took off her coat, hanging it on a peg behind the kitchen door. Reaching for the kettle automatically, she stopped and turned to the dresser, taking out a bottle of sherry that she had bought in Ely recently. She took down a large glass from the shelf of the pine cupboard and filled it to the brim.

Raising it to the empty room, she toasted her absent husband.

‘Thank you for being there when I needed you, Marcus,' she said bitterly. ‘I might as well follow your example and drown my sorrows in drink . . . I might as well be dead, like you and . . .' Putting down the glass after one sip, she got to her feet and went out to the hall. She would ring the hospital and see if there was any change.

It took a while to get through, because the girl on the main switchboard was a long time transferring her, and the ward sister answered in a frosty tone, that told Frances she wasn't pleased about being disturbed.

‘There has been no change as yet, Mrs Danby. We don't expect it for some hours. I am afraid you just have to be patient.' Frances thanked her and replaced the receiver. Clearly, she was being warned not to ring again before the evening. What on earth was she going to do with herself until then?

Frances realized that she had no real friends. There was no one she could call that she wanted to be with her – except Emily, and she was too far away. She supposed that she would have to tell Rosalind at some point during the day, but she didn't feel like it just at this moment. She walked back to the kitchen and picked up her glass. She was filled with a cold dread, and the certainty that she was going to lose her son.

Rosalind Danby replaced the telephone receiver and went back into the sitting room. Her husband had just got up to pour himself a glass of beer and he looked at her expectantly.

‘What is wrong? You look upset.'

‘I am worried,' Rosalind told him. ‘I visited Frances this morning and Charlie was being sick. I telephoned the doctor but he was out and Charlie seemed a little better when I left to come home but that was Frances on the phone. Apparently her brother took her and Charlie to Addenbrooks a couple of hours later and they kept him in. She says that he is very ill.'

‘Good grief! Why didn't she let us know before this? I could have taken you over to see him. It's too late now.'

‘Apparently, the doctor told her no visitors until tomorrow afternoon. She says that she is going to catch a bus in the morning and stay there all day. I said that you would take both of us in the car – you will, won't you?'

‘Yes, of course,' Sam said and frowned. ‘What did she say?'

‘She just mumbled something about wanting to be alone and rang off,' Rosalind said. ‘She sounded quite odd – I suppose she had been crying but her voice was a little slurred, I thought.'

‘Do you think I should go round and see her? Do you want to talk to her?'

‘She said she wanted to be alone, Sam. I don't think that we should interfere with her if she doesn't want us . . .'

His gaze narrowed. ‘You said you telephoned the doctor? Why hadn't Frances done it herself?'

‘She thought it was just a little bilious attack – and he had settled down before I left. I thought he would be over it by now.'

‘I've a good mind to telephone the hospital myself.'

‘Frances said she rang an hour ago and they told her there was no change – whatever that means.'

‘Damn it, I shall ring myself,' Sam said and went out into the hall. He returned a few minutes later looking concerned. ‘They say he is on the danger list, Rosalind. Apparently it is some kind of brain fever – at least that is what they are saying . . .'

‘What do you mean?'

‘The nurse I spoke to hinted that a fall or a bang on the head might have started the trouble off. She almost seemed to say that it might have been Frances who caused it . . . or that she had neglected to have him seen by a doctor in time . . .'

‘That is ridiculous,' Rosalind said. ‘Frances loves that child. She would never do anything to hurt him – and we both thought he was getting better.'

‘You told me yourself that
you
rang for the doctor.'

‘Because I was worried when he was sick, but I didn't think he was really ill, Sam. You can't think she neglected him, because if she asked her brother to take her into the hospital she must have been out of her mind with worry.'

‘If she had gone to the hospital sooner it might not have got to this stage. They seem very concerned about him, and I don't like what you were telling me about the way she sounded. I think I shall go round and see her.'

‘I don't think you should,' Rosalind said but he ignored her and walked out of the room. A few minutes later she heard the sound of his car starting and saw the flash of headlamps. She frowned and then went to telephone Frances to let her know that Sam was on his way, but the line was engaged.

Frances stared at the receiver. For a moment or two she just nursed it in her hand, numbed with disbelief. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't be true . . . not dead . . . not Charlie. Her beautiful, bright little boy had just died at the hospital. The doctor's words echoed in her head without her understanding them.

‘We thought it might have been a blow to the head, Mrs Danby, but the tests have just come back and it seems that it was meningitis after all. We are so very sorry, but he was too far gone when he got here – there was simply nothing we could do.'

‘Nothing you could do . . .' Frances blinked. ‘What are you saying?'

‘I am afraid your son died a few minutes ago . . .'

‘But I rang and they told me . . .'

‘It was just after that, Mrs Danby. Your father-in-law phoned half an hour after you, and when the night sister went to look at him afterwards . . . I'm very sorry. If you would like to make arrangements for Charlie's body to be collected tomorrow morning that will be quite in order.'

‘His body . . .' Frances couldn't finish the sentence.

She replaced the receiver, walking into the sitting room in a daze. She felt ill and dizzy, and it wasn't just because she had drunk half a bottle of sherry, though that wasn't helping things. She couldn't believe what was happening to her. Charlie was dead . . . What was it the doctor had said? They had thought a blow to the head might have caused his illness, but now they knew it was meningitis . . . that fatal sickness she had never heard of until today? Did they think she had hurt Charlie? Was that why they had all looked at her so strangely at the hospital?